Quotes About Character

There speaks the man of truly noble ways, Who will not listen to the words of praise. In modesty averse, and with deaf ears, He acts as though the others were his peers.

A man's shortcomings are taken from his epoch; his virtues and greatness belong to himself.

It is weakness rather than wickedness which renders men unfit to be trusted with unlimited power.

A thief, though rich, will continue to steal, but an honest man, though poor, will ever seek to pay his debts.

The superior man acquaints himself with many sayings of antiquity and many deeds of the past, in order to strengthen his character thereby.

A man is free in proportion to the measure of his virtues, and the extent to which he is free determines what his virtues can accomplish.

Commonly we say a judgment falls upon a man for something in him we cannot abide.

When a man has once forfeited the reputation of his integrity, he is set fast, and nothing will then serve his turn, neither truth nor falsehood.

Men always grow vicious before they become unbelievers.

The man who gets drunk in peacetime is a coward. The man who gets drunk in wartime goes on being a coward.

Fortunately, there is a sane equilibrium in the character of nations, as there is in that of men.

We must judge religious movements, not by the men who make them, but by the men they make.

Most men had rather say a smart thing than do a good one. John P. Kotter, Leading Change.

It is more difficult to be an honorable man for a week than to be a hero for fifteen minutes.

[May 1958, on playing Macbeth at age 30 and age 48] When you're a young man, Macbeth is a character part. When you're older, it's a straight part.

Jimmy Stewart was a very sincere, honest and straightforward man.

What makes a man a man? It's the choices he makes. Not how he starts things but how he finishes them.

The whelp of a wolf must prove a wolf at last, notwithstanding he may be brought up by a man.

It is a sin to judge any man by his post

As I know more of mankind I expect less of them, and am ready now to call a man a good man upon easier terms than I was formerly.

In every good man a God doth dwell.

Virtue does not come from wealth, but wealth, and every other good thing which men have comes from virtue.

I haven't aged into a character actor. I'm an old leading man.

Nothing marks a man's character better than his attraction to intelligence.